Although commissioning is a crucial part of the ship-build process, it occurs late in development. Traditionally, different vendors design and verify onboard systems separately. From a shipyard’s perspective, there is a need for multiple-system, multiple-vendor testing infrastructure to ensure that interfaces between systems are functioning correctly, and faults are identified as early as possible.
To avoid problems from late-stage testing, we propose shifting the system-level testing months earlier by developing virtual testing and commissioning technologies. The overarching objective of this project is to develop a unified, distributed test environment for virtual sea trials and commissioning for the whole shipbuilding ecosystem. Through virtualization, maritime technology providers and shipyards can demonstrate to customers new efficient ways of designing, building, and testing onboard systems; the risk associated with installing novel technological innovations onboard is reduced. Thus, the proposed Virtual Sea Trial project can potentially change how future shipbuilding is conducted, placing the Finnish shipbuilding ecosystem as a forerunner globally. The long-term competitive advantage generated by this project will result in an increasingly profitable edge on the international market, promoting economic growth as well as technological advances supporting climate neutrality.